


Epilogue

by theladyscribe



Series: From the New World [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bucky Returns the Infinity Stones, Crossover, Established Relationship, M/M, Pevensies Live, Post-Endgame, Reunions, Spies & Secret Agents, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-07-19 06:36:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19969636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theladyscribe/pseuds/theladyscribe
Summary: It should have been enough to know he was alive, somehow, in the here and now, even if here and now was nearly fifty years before Bucky's present. To know Edmund existed -- lived and breathed -- outside of Narnia and hadn't simply been a fever dream in the purgatory of the Snap. It was enough.It had to be enough.Or, Bucky finds his way home after the Blip.





	Epilogue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aurilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurilly/gifts).



> Dear aurilly, when I first saw your prompt for Edmund/Bucky, I knew immediately where I wanted to take them. I hope you like it.

Bucky followed his mark from Camp Lehigh to a rowhouse on a quiet street in Philadelphia. It was late, past midnight, the neighborhood sleeping. Benches lined a park across the street, shaded by overhanging trees. He picked one with a clear line of sight into his mark's apartment and settled in to wait and watch.

The second floor window lit up, and he could see the mark puttering around what must be the kitchen along one wall. Edmund. He moved with the same grace as always, every step deliberate, every lift of his arm elegant, even making himself a very late dinner. Bucky watched him pull down one plate, one glass. He was alone, then. Good. One less thing to worry about while he watched Edmund plate his food and move out of sight.

Bucky should leave, he knew. He'd done everything he was supposed to do here, returned the Tesseract to Camp Lehigh -- the last stop on his intergalactic tour of time and space on behalf of the Avengers -- picked up enough Pym particles to get him back to the future. Steve and Banner had been very clear on the dangers of overstaying his welcome anywhere. Changing anything, doing anything other than replacing the Infinity Stones, could make things worse in the future or break the timeline or split the universe or -- the list of possible dangers had been endless. But then he had seen Edmund, walking through the camp with Peggy Carter and Howard Stark, his gait unmistakably Edmund Pevensie, King and Spymaster of Narnia, never stumbling even when his gaze fell on Bucky lurking in the shadow of a cargo truck.

Perhaps Edmund hadn't seen him. The others with him certainly hadn't; both Carter and Stark would have sounded the alarm if they had caught sight of a thirty-year-old ghost. Edmund's appearance at Lehigh had rattled him, but Bucky told himself that it was curiosity and consternation, not relief at the sight of him, that kept him from returning to the present right away like he should have.

It should have been enough to know Edmund was alive, somehow, in the here and now, even if here and now was nearly fifty years before Bucky's present. To know he existed -- lived and breathed -- outside of Narnia and hadn't simply been a fever dream in the purgatory of the Snap. It was enough.

It had to be enough.

A noise to his right caused him to stand and whirl, ready to fight with a knife in hand. Edmund stood not ten feet down the sidewalk, the street light casting strange shadows across his face. Bucky should have known better than to let him out of his sight. Edmund had always been a sneaky bastard, silent and swift as only a man used to hunting game with a longbow could be. 

"Hail, stranger," Edmund said softly, stepping forward. His hands were up; he was unarmed. "How came you here?"

Bucky stood frozen, unable to speak.

Edmund stood directly in front of him now, within arm's reach. "James?" he asked cautiously. He stood taut as a bowstring, coiled to strike if Bucky attacked him. Bucky wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh or to cry at the realization that Edmund wasn't sure if it was him or the Winter Soldier staking out his house.

Bucky breathed deeply, steadying himself. "It's me."

"How came you here?" Edmund asked again as he stepped closer, only a hair's breadth away.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Bucky answered, his voice breaking on a wave of desire.

"Try me," Edmund whispered, breath ghosting Bucky's cheek, before catching his hand and leading him across the street and into the rowhouse.

There were a thousand reasons why this was a stupid, stupid idea, but Bucky shoved all of them away as they stumbled up the stairs to the second floor. Bucky had been stupid to let himself get caught, but it was Edmund, here in front of him, real and solid and alive. He'd already lost him once, and he knew he couldn't stay, but one more night -- surely no one would begrudge him that.

If this was his last goodbye, he would make it worth it.

Edmund seemed on board with this unspoken decision, closing the door by pushing Bucky into it, apparently uncaring that it shut hard enough to rattle the picture frames on the wall. Bucky crowded him back, walking Edmund backward into the apartment. It was small, a one-room bachelor pad, the room barely big enough for the table by the window and the bed tucked in a corner. Bucky focused on pulling Edmund's sweater over his head, scrabbling at the clips of his suspenders, undoing his pants. They bumped into the table where Edmund's dinner sat untouched. Bucky tried to push him onto the table, but Edmund pushed back, muttering, "It won't hold; the bed's right there."

They made it to the bed -- barely -- both of them naked. Bucky's desperation was reflected back at him in the way Edmund pushed him down, gripping his shoulders tightly. He pressed biting kisses down Bucky's throat, his hands roving, as if he wanted to assure himself that Bucky was real. Bucky clutched back, fingers digging bruises into Edmund's hips. They rutted against each other until Edmund slipped a sweat-slick hand between them.

Bucky's orgasm was quick. Had it been any other circumstance, he might have been embarrassed by it, but as it was, he was just glad he hadn't gone off the moment Edmund first touched him. For his part, Edmund's smile was smug as he pulled back to stare down at Bucky. That wouldn't do. Bucky hooked a leg around Edmund's and flipped them. He pinned Edmund's hips with his metal arm and sank down to suck his cock.

Edmund came with a gratifying moan, his hands tugging at Bucky's hair. Sweaty and spent, Bucky sagged against his hips.

"Come up here." Edmund pulled at his arm until Bucky crawled up the bed, collapsing with his head on Edmund's shoulder and an arm slung around his waist. Edmund wiggled underneath him, tugging at the blankets and rearranging them to his satisfaction.

Bucky shifted so he could better see Edmund's face. He'd been too far away and then too busy sucking down Edmund's cock to really look before. He was older now than when Bucky last saw him, on the cliffs near Cair Paravel. He had graying hair and lines at the corners of his eyes that hadn't been there three weeks ago when the door between Narnia and Earth reopened. Bucky stretched a hand out, tracing his fingers down Edmund's jaw, still strong and set, but missing the livid scar he'd acquired in a fight with pirates from the south. A different scar bisected his right eyebrow, a thin white line that disappeared into his hairline above his forehead.

Bucky knew distantly that he should go. He was well past a reasonable detour from his mission, lying close and warm in Edmund's arms. He wanted to stay a little longer, maybe coax the story of his new scar from him. It wasn't like anyone in the future would know the difference. He listened to Edmund's breathing slow, let the rise and fall of his chest pull him under. He didn't fall asleep, not quite, but he drifted, his world shrinking down to Edmund and the bed they shared.

Some time later, Edmund said, "Tell me of your future."

"Tell me of your past," Bucky returned. He glanced up at Edmund's face, but it was unreadable.

"You followed me from Camp Lehigh." It wasn't a question.

Bucky shifted, uncomfortable. He tried to cover it up, quipping, "If you didn't want to be caught, you should have covered your tracks better. Anyone could have followed you home."

He waited for a witty rejoinder, but Edmund said nothing.

"What were you doing at Lehigh anyway?" Bucky asked when the silence had stretched too long.

Edmund tensed beneath him. "I could ask you the same thing."

"You work for SHIELD? Central Intelligence? The army?" Bucky pulled away from Edmund so he could better see his reaction.

"That's classified information."

Edmund's eyes had gone blank, his gaze distant. Bucky always hated it when Edmund went stone-faced and recalcitrant. He pushed. "Don't pull that shit on me. Why are you working for them? I told you what they did to me. They can't be trusted, even the good ones, and yet here you are."

Edmund sighed and sat up, reaching for the pair of glasses on the side table. Those, like the grays and the laugh lines, were new, too. He bent down to gather their clothes, pulling his underwear out of the pile.

Bucky touched his back in apology, his anger gone as quickly as it had appeared. He didn't want to fight, not really, but he needed -- wanted -- answers.

Edmund looked at him over his shoulder. His smile was similarly apologetic. "I think I'll put on a pot of tea. It's been a long time." He stood and padded around the screen that blocked the kitchenette from view.

Bucky listened to the sounds of Edmund in the kitchen: the running of the tap, the click-whoosh of the gas stove, the clink of teacups. He could see the back of Edmund's head and shoulders over the screen, his hair still sticking up in tufts from where Bucky had tangled his fingers in it. He had the beginnings of a hickey at the join of his neck and shoulder.

The kettle began to whistle, so Bucky rolled himself out of bed. He found his pants and put them on before joining Edmund on the other side of the screen. Edmund had cleared the table of his dinner and laid out bread and cheese with fruit, reminiscent of their first meal together, though Bucky doubted it would hold a candle to Mrs. Beaver's brown bread and butter. They sat in silence while they waited for the tea to steep, both of them lost in their own thoughts.

When Edmund had poured the tea and Bucky had doctored both cups according to their preferences -- his heavily sugared, Edmund's with cream -- Edmund began to speak.

"After you left Narnia, I hoped you might find a way back. Maybe your friends would find a way to send you back, or the portal would reopen after your battle, after you weren't needed on Earth anymore." Edmund smiled wryly down at his tea. "But it didn't, and years passed, and I hope you won't be too upset to find out that my memories of you faded somewhat. Not entirely, obviously, but enough to dull the loss.

"And then, many years later, after Peter had gone almost entirely bald, and Luce's hair was white as the snow on the mountains, the four of us went on a hunt in the Lantern Waste. Took a wrong turn chasing after a hart, and found ourselves at the lamp post where we'd first entered Narnia all those years before. I can't explain how it happened exactly, but we went back through the wardrobe, to the professor's house in Devon, and when we stepped out of it, we were children again." Edmund laughed, though it was tinged with bitterness. "Imagine being a king and spymaster for half a century, and suddenly finding yourself to be ten years old again."

"That sounds… difficult." Bucky took a sip of his tea, not knowing what else to say.

Edmund quirked an eyebrow. "That's putting it rather mildly." Edmund looked out the dark window, his gaze distant, staring out at a landscape in another universe. When he turned back, Bucky pretended not to notice that his eyes were wet.

He wanted to push again, to ask what this had to do with SHIELD and Edmund's place in it, but he recognized enough of Edmund's mood now to tread lightly. "How is Lucy?" he asked instead, reaching across the table to serve up more tea.

Edmund graced him with a genuine smile. "Happy as ever. You know Luce. Never bothered by a thing, goes through life serene as a butterfly. She's made me an uncle three times over now, and all three of them are growing up plummy and good as she is. Peter's married, too, with a boy -- a young man now, really. Su was married -- twice! -- but after the second, she says she won't marry again. Likes her freedom, that one. I don't think she ever quite forgave Him for bringing us back here." His eyes went distant again; Susan wasn't the only one who'd not quite forgiven or forgotten their departure from Narnia.

"And what about you?" Bucky asked, deliberately bumping his knee against Edmund's under the table.

"I'm as you see me," Edmund said. "A not-so-young man with a small flat in Pennsylvania."

"And a government job at Camp Lehigh." Bucky leveled his stare over his tea cup, but Edmund only matched it.

"The war was still on when we came back," Edmund said abruptly, setting his cup down. "We stayed at the professor's house the rest of that summer and into the winter. The four of us spent months knocking on walls and opening cupboards looking for a way back to Narnia and our lives there, but nothing ever came of it. And in the spring, the war ended. Everything was quite different after, of course. We grew up again, changed. I think our parents assumed it was the upheaval of the war, though really it was knowing what we had been in Narnia and not quite knowing if it had all been a dream."

Edmund looked out the dark window again. "I excelled at foreign languages in school. 'Clever Pevensie,' they called me. Our dad had a friend from the RAF who worked at Scotland Yard. He found me a placement when I finished school. Foreign office, very prestigious. When the SSR's scope expanded into more international ventures, I volunteered." He took a deep breath, and his next words came softly. "I hoped I might find you. I knew it was unlikely, and that even if I were admitted into the inner circle it would be even more unlikely I could do anything, but. I hoped. I thought I might be able to minimize your use, or warn some of the targets, to save you from, well." He shrugged, encompassing all of Bucky's years as the Winter Soldier in the motion. "It's not easy to run interference on an asset that doesn't officially exist, but I've always enjoyed a challenge."

"Stupid," Bucky said, the word choking him. "They'll kill you if they catch you. Or worse, order me to do it."

"I didn't say it was a smart decision, but it seemed an acceptable price to pay in exchange for the good I might do from inside the machine." A little of his humor creeped back into his voice. "When I saw you at Lehigh today, I was nearly certain my time had come."

"And you still let me track you?" Bucky asked, horrified. He wanted to shake Edmund for his lack of self-preservation.

"I've already lived two lifetimes, both full of danger and adventure," Edmund said, his voice far too light. "Besides, the way you looked back at me… It was a calculated risk. If I were wrong, then it was too late for me to do anything about it. And if I were right, I decided I'd at least get a decent fuck out of it."

His leer startled a laugh out of Bucky, though it sounded a little hysterical to his own ears. "And did you?"

Edmund rubbed at the hickey Bucky had given him and grinned. "It was tolerable." He sobered. "It's your turn, James. Where have you been all these years I've lived? How came you here?"

There was that question again, echoing across worlds between them. Bucky bit his lip, unsure where to start. He settled on, "Time moves differently here than in Narnia, as you know."

Edmund snorted. "But it doesn't move backward. And yet you somehow got here, forty years before you left Earth."

"Fifty, actually."

Edmund raised his eyebrows. "Again, time moves differently, but it doesn't go backward. I think I'd have heard something about the battle you walked back into, even here in my little corner of the world."

Bucky sighed and set his cup on its saucer. "It's only been six weeks since I left Cair Paravel. Ten years in Narnia was five years here. At least, that's what Steve told me." Bucky stared down at his hands. His metal fingers rattled against the china rim of the saucer. He put his hand in his lap. "He thought -- they all thought we were dead. Half the living things in the universe, gone and dead for five years, until they brought us all back. Can you imagine? I can't. I keep thinking about the year of the drought, when the Rush River dried up and the woods went so quiet while the Dryads slept. You remember?"

Edmund nodded, his eyes shut against the memory. "When the rains came that winter and the river flooded its banks, I remember thinking I'd never seen anyone so relieved to be mucking out houses as Peter and Su. The harvest the next year was all the sweeter for what we'd been through."

"It's like that now on Earth," Bucky said. "In the future, I mean. Like everyone's sighing in relief after a disaster's been averted." Bucky looked at his metal hand again. He clenched his fist and opened it. He'd come back to a war zone, the fight against Thanos the biggest battle he'd ever seen. The carnage had been unreal, but the death toll had been shockingly low, thanks to Stark undoing the Snap. There had still been losses, felt keenly. Stark was gone, and Natasha, too. Friends of his from Wakanda -- Ayanda and Sipho and Oluchi -- who hadn't survived the final onslaught of Thanos' army. The greater devastation had been to the land, a canyon torn into the ground where once there'd been a hill overlooking the river. It would take decades, if not centuries, to repair that.

"I couldn't stay there," he confessed. "It was all too much. The work that needed to be done, everyone's sympathy, all of it."

Despite the losses and the work to be done, everyone seemed to be coping well, glad to be back in a place that made sense. Most were coping better than Bucky, anyway. No one else had apparently ended up in a place quite like Narnia. Wilson said he spent five minutes flying over a foggy marshland before blinking and finding himself back where he'd been. T'Challa was on an island for three months when the doorway between worlds reopened. Shuri only had a haunted look in her eye when Bucky quietly asked her where she'd gone. He didn't ask her about it again.

And then there was Bucky. Ten years in a land full of magic, myths turned into reality, kings and queens and dryads and fauns and talking animals. Ten years spent learning the land, learning to hunt and to take up a sword, but also to know when to put it down and take up a plough. Ten years learning the valleys and ridges of Edmund's spine, the cords of his muscles, the timbre of his voice. How could he explain to Steve or to anyone what he'd left behind to fight yet another battle in a seemingly neverending war.

When it came time to return the stones, Bucky had told Steve that he was the best choice for the one-man job, but the truth was he wanted to mourn what he'd lost in the Blip. He couldn't do that with Steve hovering over him.

"James." Edmund's voice was insistent, as if he'd been trying to get Bucky's attention more than once.

"Sorry. Where was I?"

"You said you couldn't stay there. In the future." Bucky reached for the teapot, but it was empty. Edmund stood and refilled the kettle. Once it was back on the boil, he stepped to the cabinet and pulled out a bottle of whiskey. He set it on the table between them without a word.

Bucky picked it up and opened it, pouring each of them a generous shot. "Right. They used the Stones -- the Infinity Stones, you remember, I told you about them? -- to bring us all back. But Thanos had destroyed them, not long after he used them, or something. So they built a time machine and used it to go back to where the Stones had been before all of this. It sounds like a bunch of science fiction nonsense, but --" Bucky still didn't quite believe it, even after using the time machine himself.

Edmund turned from the stove. "Clearly it worked."

"Right," Bucky said again. "Anyway, after everything was over, and we won, the Stones had to go back to where they'd come from. I volunteered to take them."

"Hoping to get lost in time?" Edmund asked, pouring fresh tea into their cups. He said it casually, like he was asking Bucky his plans for Sunday lunch. Bucky knew fishing for what it was, no matter how well Edmund tried to mask it.

He turned back to Edmund. "I was hoping to find a way back to you."

"Well, you found me."

"I did." He lifted his teacup in salute. Cupping it in his other hand, he said, "You know, when I told Steve where I'd been for the last ten years, he listened to the whole long tale without interrupting even once. And when I got to the end, you know what that bastard asked me? He asked me if I'd been happy there in Narnia. With you."

Edmund's cup clinked as he set it down. He went very still, pressing his palms into the table. "And were you?" he asked carefully, as if bracing himself for an answer he might not like.

Bucky waited until Edmund lifted his eyes to him. "I was," he said. He took a sip of his tea; the whiskey was strong, fortifying, the tea warming, soothing.

He looked out the window. Dawn was beginning to tinge the dark sky, the edges of the trees highlighted in gold and pink. It wasn't the first time he and Edmund had talked through the night. Bucky didn't want it to be the last. He had seen a future for himself in Edmund once, in their long talks, in their travels both diplomatic and not, in the bed they had shared in Cair Paravel. He could see it now, too. He wanted to deepen the hickey blooming on Edmund's neck, wanted to map all of his new scars, wanted to be his right hand again, to the end of time. He wanted it, desperately, but he couldn't have it here.

He set his teacup down. "I have to go," he said.

"I know." Edmund's mouth twisted into something short of a smile.

"You could come with me," Bucky said. "See the future. I can bring you back here if you hate it."

Edmund quirked an eyebrow. "Are you sure that's wise?"

"No," Bucky admitted. "But there's only one way to find out."

**Author's Note:**

> As you might have guessed from the title, this is part of a much larger story that I ran out of time to finish. I have a lot of plans for Bucky in Narnia, and so does Edmund. ;)
> 
> Camp Lehigh doesn't actually exist and the only location I could find for it is "Wheaton, New Jersey," which also doesn't exist. For the purposes of this story, I've placed it outside of Millville, about 45 minutes south of Philadelphia, and home to the Wheaton Arts Center.
> 
> I deliberately left out Edmund's post-Golden Age excursions into Narnia and significantly extended the Pevensies' years of ruling. This was entirely for narrative expediency, so I hope you'll forgive me.


End file.
